News Special Reports Transgender Headline List Illustratedhttps://www.timesunion.com/transgender/collectionRss/News-Special-Reports-Transgender-Headline-List-13062.php
https://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Attention-turning-to-equal-rights-fight-2376855.php
article2376855PAUL GRONDAHL, Staff writer ]]>
On the federal level, President Barack Obama signed a law in 2009 that expanded the federal hate crimes law to include any crime motivated by "gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability." On another front, a state panel advising Cuomo on Medicaid reform had been discussing, among dozens of suggestions, Medicaid coverage of gender reassignment surgery for transgender patients across the state. [...] after a Sept. 29 New York Post story touched off a firestorm of protest, the proposal for Medicaid coverage of transgender surgery was quietly taken off the table prior to a Nov. 1 meeting of a Medicaid Redesign Team that reports to Cuomo, according to Lang. A state Health Department spokesman, Jeffrey Gordon, said he would not discuss the issue other than to refer a reporter to a public statement previously made by Shah: Gender reassignment surgery is a fundamentally complex medical issue. Currently, New York state requires the following proofs to change an applicant's sex designation on a birth certificate: documentation that irreversible gender reassignment surgery was completed and medical records were submitted from the surgeon to the health department; documentation of an extended period of hormone replacement therapy; a letter from a therapist confirming the applicant received counseling. Advocates are seeking a change in statute that would allow transgender people to change the sex designation on their birth certificate without requiring the irreversible genital procedures of gender reassignment surgery. Transgender advocates have proposed a state Health Department statute change that would only require an official letter from a licensed physician, psychiatrist, psychologist or social worker stating that the applicant's gender identity conforms with the gender identity stated by the applicant. By removing surgical and hormonal requirements for changing sex designations on birth certificates, New York would join other jurisdictions that ha ]]>
Thu, 8 Dec 2011 03:53:27 UThttps://www.timesunion.com/local/article/For-Drew-nothing-is-written-2348809.php
article2348809PAUL GRONDAHL, Staff writer ]]>
On the mend from gender reassignment surgery, Drew approaches the next chapter as an open book GLENS FALLS — Drew Cordes lowered herself into an easy chair in her parents' living room in a slow-motion descent and emitted a sharp grunt after completing the simple act of sitting down. Even the parting gift from the Canadians was small comfort: an inflatable doughnut to ease the ache of sitting in a chair after transgender surgery. [...] Drew does not shy away from discussing the surgery and other elements of transitioning from a man to a woman in hopes of demystifying the little-studied and marginally understood condition known as gender dysphoria — unhappiness with one's biological sex or its usual gender role, with the desire for the body and role of the opposite sex. The 29-year-old writer and editor was at a rare loss for words in trying to articulate what she felt, having completed a long, arduous journey of changing genders that spanned a quarter-century. Drew entered the stormy period of adolescence with an unusual degree of confusion and shame and tried to bury those embarrassing feelings of longing to be a girl in a blur of boys' sports, competition and maleness. Drew's parents, who are open-minded and liberal, were nonetheless shocked when their only child, a son, came out as gay as a teenager and later as transgender. Cross-dressing in private led to tentative forays of going out in public as a woman. Her transition over the past seven years has cost tens of thousands of dollars and has been a physically painful and emotionally challenging marathon of counseling, hormone therapy, facial reconstruction, electrolysis, voice modification and gradually learning how to live as a woman. [...] three weeks after gender reassignment surgery, it seemed like an opportunity to put her transition into context. There were also dozens of yellowed newspaper clippings from the Glens Falls Post-Star that chro ]]>
Tue, 6 Dec 2011 20:39:52 UThttps://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Going-from-Kenny-to-Kym-was-no-easy-road-2342395.php
article2342395PAUL GRONDAHL, Staff writer ]]>
ALBANY — Kym Dorsey churned up Madison Avenue, rounded a corner and teetered slightly as she negotiated the cracked sidewalk in 4-inch stiletto heels. Nobody on the stoop muttered the "f-word," but it seemed to hang in the air, a two-syllable kick to the gut of homosexuals. Dorsey heard the hateful word, faggot, often growing up in Arbor Hill as a slender, feminine boy named Kenny. What's really hard is living back in the 'hood where I grew up and having people call me Kenny all the time. The words of her kindly grandfather, who consoled the adolescent boy after taunts and occasional beatings from classmates, rang in Dorsey's ears as she talked about her tortured transgender journey: It ain't about what they call you, baby. [...] she remains married as Kenneth to a woman from Ivory Coast who came into his mother's hair salon and began a flirtation while Dorsey cut her hair. In hindsight, Dorsey feels the three months they lived together as man and wife in 1997 was a well-calculated play to earn her U.S. citizenship. Dorsey has changed her name and switched gender on her driver's license, but she cannot change her birth certificate from male to female because she has not undergone gender reassignment surgery, the final step in a transgender's transition. Dorsey has taken the initial steps of a transition, including psychological counseling, hormone therapy and dressing and living as a woman. On her deathbed in 2007, Dorsey's mother spoke cryptic words that were music to Dorsey's transgender ears: "You need to be who you were meant to be." [...] she has taken drugs to block male attributes and enhance female ones while cementing the shift from Kenny to Kym. [...] once they stepped outside the street-level one-bedroom, he refused to hold her hand, walked several paces ahead and pretended not to know her if he passed acquaintances on the street — while she quietly endured the abuse. None of the drama o ]]>
Sun, 4 Dec 2011 02:15:46 UThttps://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Surgery-pain-humor-and-no-turning-back-2341896.php
article2341896PAUL GRONDAHL, Staff writer ]]>
MONTREAL — Drew Cordes was awake and heavily medicated when she was wheeled in a surgical bed to her private room on the first floor, four hours after riding an elevator to the second-floor operating room. "God, you look good," her mom, Janet, said, brushing back tears and kissing Drew's pale, freckled forehead. Drew got out her laptop and resumed watching the Bugs Bunny "Rabbit Seasoning" episode that surgery had interrupted. Drew's mother and father, John, paused to talk in low voices outside her room, to reflect on how far Drew had come and what they had learned from Drew about her transition following counseling with Albany family therapist Arlene Lev. After six days, vaginal packing sewn up inside is removed, followed the next day by removal of the catheter and the patient's first experience of urinating as a woman. "The surgery is hard technically and it's still very much an art," said Belanger, 31, who has spent 10 years working with Brassard on hundreds of gender reassignment surgeries and related procedures offered at the Montreal hospital including Adam's apple shaving, voice surgery, breast augmentation and plastic surgery for face and body feminization. Complaints have faded and Canadians have gradually accepted gender reassignment surgery and the fact that the government foots the bill, she said. For the patient, severe pain, bruising and general discomfort for days after the male-to-female procedure are common. Other procedures such as breast augmentation and electrolysis are considered cosmetic and are not covered in Canada. Drew's gender reassignment surgery was covered by her employer's health insurer, CDPHP, which only began covering the procedure about three years ago after losing a claim challenge. A clear policy citing medical necessity was developed and requests for coverage are considered on a case-by-case basis, a CDPHP spokeswoman said. CDPHP covers the series of organ surgica ]]>
Sat, 3 Dec 2011 16:19:00 UThttps://www.timesunion.com/local/article/The-long-difficult-journey-of-how-a-man-became-a-2341891.php
article2341891
MONTREAL — Draped in a pale blue surgical gown, her shoulder-length ginger hair feathered delicately across a pillow, Drew Cordes turned on her side in a hospital bed and watched a Bugs Bunny cartoon on her Mac laptop. For Cordes, it seems more like independence day, the chance for a hard-won freedom from the gender discordance — "gender dysphoria" is the clinical term — she has felt since childhood, when she began trying to bury a deep urge to shift from being a he to a she. On the computer, with a large rainbow Apple sticker on its cover, she checked Facebook and last night's Red Sox box score before cueing up the cartoon. The process has included psychological counseling, hormone therapy, facial reconstruction, electrolysis, voice modification, learning how to dress and present herself as female in the workplace and out in public and much, much more. Cordes' transition has cost tens of thousands of dollars, including $20,000 for the GRS procedure, which involves surgical removal of the testicles, amputation of the penis and fashioning a vagina and clitoris from the "de-gloved" skin of the penis. In order to clear the hurdles of eligibility for GRS, Cordes has had to document that she has lived full-time as a female for more than one year, has been recommended for the surgery by a clinical behavioral scientist and has presented two letters of recommendation from mental health professionals. In trademark dark humor, Cordes wrote a blog entry on an LGBT website, the Bilerico Project, in an entry titled "An Open Letter to My Genitals in Advance of Surgery." There's a legitimate quality control concern, though, and the Montreal clinic occasionally does repair work on patients who received a botched GRS procedure off-shore. Many trans people are familiar with the pain and suffering of being transgender: estranged from family members, verbally harassed and sometimes assaulted by strangers, discriminated ]]>
Sat, 3 Dec 2011 16:18:00 UThttps://www.timesunion.com/local/article/People-just-know-me-as-Pat-2341884.php
article2341884Sat, 3 Dec 2011 16:13:00 UThttps://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Transgender-patients-on-rise-but-medical-care-2342651.php
article2342651PAUL GRONDAHL, Staff writer ]]>
ALBANY — Doctors don't learn how to treat transgender patients in medical school and the medical establishment has been slow to address a rising trend, according to a local physician. The clinical definition — "a persistent aversion toward some or all of those physical characteristics or social roles that connote one's own biological sex" — does not begin to capture Leinung's experience with transgender patients. "For transgender people, the switch is thrown in the opposite direction and they've always felt uncomfortable in the gender role they took on through socialization beginning at birth," Leinung said. In his male-to-female patients, who represent about 80 percent of his caseload, hormone replacement therapy involves reducing male characteristics such as body hair, beard growth, muscular upper body development, pattern hair loss on the scalp and other masculine physical attributes. Drug therapies enhance the feminization process by increasing breast development, fullness in the hips, a softer skin texture and other female characteristics. There is also a barrier to medical care for transgender patients, since Medicaid and some private health insurance policies are declining coverage for various types of transgender care. ]]>
Fri, 9 Dec 2011 07:00:00 UThttps://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Learning-how-to-talk-all-over-again-2342654.php
article2342654PAUL GRONDAHL, Staff writer ]]>
Classes teach transgender students who to change their voices Four male-to-female transgender clients sat in desks arranged in a circle, absorbing his instruction, trying to mimic his sounds. "The goal is to get your vocal instrument to sound differently," said Pickering, associate professor in communications science and disorders and founder of the voice modification program. A deep, masculine voice is a dead giveaway and a major obstacle for transgender men beginning to transition to living as a female. Men who might be able to blend in as women by wearing a dress, makeup, wig and jewelry can undercut painstaking preparations the moment they open their mouths. The estrogen some transgender clients take as part of hormone replacement therapy to enhance their feminization process does not change their voice. Pickering, his colleagues and graduate students work to help transgender people clear the hurdle represented by the naturally occurring, masculine sound of their voice. Pickering was assisted by Dan Kayajian, an adjunct professor and a speech-language pathologist at the University Ear, Nose and Throat practice in Albany. ]]>
Fri, 9 Dec 2011 07:00:00 UThttps://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Therapists-help-transgender-patients-with-2342655.php
article2342655PAUL GRONDAHL, Staff writer ]]>
The way a person answers the question, ranging from certitude to confusion, holds the key to treatment options. Both therapists view gender with a wider lens than a binary classification of either male or female. [...] as part of a newly emerging trend, the therapists are seeing youths at ever-younger ages who have a disconnect between their biological sex and the gender they feel compelled to express. Ongoing research suggests that there is a biological component to the transgender experience and scans have shown that the brains of transgender people bear structural differences. People know I have transitioned, but my medical situation is, like everyone else's, a private matter. Currently, their clients are diagnosed with a "gender identity disorder" by the American Psychiatric Association's fourth edition Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, the standard text for the profession. The DSM's definition includes: "Long-standing and strong identification with another gender" and "long-standing disquiet about the sex assigned or a sense of incongruity in the gender-assigned role of that sex." Nationally, surveys and analysis suggests there are as many as 700,000 transgender individuals who identify themselves as gender variant or have taken active steps to transition to a different gender. Both Lev and Stone work with parents with young children who are gender dysphoric, such as boys who like to play with Barbie dolls and dress up in girls' clothes. The therapists' work extends beyond the family to helping school administrators and teachers find ways to make accommodations for gender non-conforming students. Treatment is customized with each of their clients, who range from occasional cross-dressers to fully transitioned transgender people who have undergone gender reassignment surgery. Lev and Stone are both quick to offer a more upbeat counterpoint by describing transgender clients who have completed transitions to a different g ]]>
Fri, 9 Dec 2011 07:00:00 UT